Updating our trust deed

The Māori Fisheries Amendment Act 2024 came into force on 26 July 2026. It amends the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, the Act that set up the framework for our 2004 fisheries settlement. It aims to lower compliance costs, simplify processes, and allow more rangatiratanga for iwi over their own assets.

Nine parts of the framework changed. Most are administrative, but two require decision from us.

Most of it is tidy-up:

• income shares in Moana New Zealand are now called ordinary shares, so the deed uses the new name;
• Te Kawai Taumata, a national appointing body, has been disestablished, so references to it come out;
• A few statute names are updated, such as the Trusts Act 2019 and the Income Tax Act 2007;
• Two gaps Te Ohu Kaimoana identified are filled, to clarify that a member vote is needed if another organisation will replace the Trust as Ngāti Rārua’s mandated iwi organisation;
• Two changes are real decisions: how a sale of settlement quota is approved, and whether trustees can also sit as directors of the Asset Holding Company.

Yes. This is the heart of the changes.

Under the old law the process was written into the Act and we had to follow it: a 75% vote of members, with detailed, time consuming and costly processes to follow.

The amended Act removes all of that. We can set how and when fisheries settlement assets may be sold: the process is for us to decide.

A sale of fisheries settlement assets can go ahead only if:

• the buyer is one the Act allows, which in practice means another iwi organisation, an asset holding company, or an entity in the Moana New Zealand group; and
• at least 75% of trustees approve it.

The ordinary protections in our Trust deed still apply on top of that. If a sale is worth more than half of everything the Trust owns, it is a “Major Transaction” and needs a 75% vote of members.

Three reasons:

1. Consistency. The Rūnanga holds whenua, buildings, shares, cash and fisheries assets. Only the fisheries settlement assets carried a special member vote before any sale, and that was because the 2004 Act required it, not because we chose it. The trustees are empowered to make decisions about other assets, and see this as one way to simplify and reduce compliance costs.
2. The bar stays high. A 75% trustee resolution is still a higher test than applies to other investment decisions. There is no delegation to management or investment advisors to sell any fisheries settlement assets without this trustee approval. 
3. Speed and cost. Calling a special general meeting takes at least 20 working days of notice and a quorum on the day, and voting processes are costly to run. The old process was slow and expensive, which is part of why the law was changed.

Members keep oversight where it counts. Every year the Trust must report to you on fisheries settlement assets sold, bought or exchanged, on its dealings with Te Ohu Kaimoana and Moana New Zealand, and on the policy the trustees apply to those decisions. And you elect the trustees who make the call.

No. There is no proposal to sell. Fisheries settlement assets are part of the Kia pai te noho strategy and the trustees expect to hold them and grow the return from them. The change is about who decides, and how quickly they can move when something worth doing comes up.

The old Act required the majority of directors of our Asset Holding Company to be independent (we could only have one trustee director). The amended Act removes the cap and leaves the question to each iwi. The trustees wish to remove this restriction, so directors can be chosen on skills and fit. The Asset Holding Company stays wholly owned and controlled by the Trust, its accounts are audited, and it reports to the Trust each year.

It is being updated at the same time and for the same reasons. The changes also include requirements on the Asset Holding Company directors to follow directions from the trustees, and seek their approval before any sale of fisheries settlement assets can occur.